Page 1 of Faking it with my Bad Boy Crush

Prologue

BROKEN GLASS AND SECOND CHANCES

Ethan

Lopez Island, Twenty Years Ago

I was eighteen years old the night I tried to destroy Honey & Hearth Bakery. It was my breaking point, and I could blame it on a lot of things: the college acceptance letter I'd had to decline, the overdue notice from the electric company my mother had hidden under a stack of bills, the voicemail from my father's new wife asking us to stop calling because "Greg has moved on and you should too."

But really, I just wanted to break something as badly as I felt broken.

The rock was heavy in my hand—smooth and cold, pulled from the landscaping outside the island's community center. I'd been walking for hours, my mind a spiral of rage and helplessness, until I found myself standing in front of Honey & Hearth at two in the morning. The bakery looked peaceful in the darkness, its windows reflecting the streetlights, the hand-painted sign creaking slightly in the ocean breeze.

Cozy. Peaceful. Everything I wasn't.

I drew my arm back and threw.

The bakery's front window shattered with satisfying violence, the sound explosive in the quiet night. Glass rained down onto the sidewalk, glittering like stars. I stood there breathing hard, my heart pounding, waiting for the alarm that would bring police, consequences, and an end to this feeling of suffocating anger.

Nothing. The island was too small, too trusting. Of course there was no alarm.

I climbed through the broken window, my hands slicing on the jagged glass still clinging to the frame. Blood welled up hot and immediate, but I barely felt it. Pain was good. Pain meant something was happening, that I was doing something instead of just drowning.

Inside, the bakery smelled like flour and sugar and something warm I couldn't name. Comfort, maybe. Home. All the things that had been ripped away from me when my father decided his new family was more important than the one he'd left behind.

I contemplated the damage I could do. The display case with its vintage glass and careful arrangement could be wrecked in seconds.. The industrial mixer probably cost thousands and could easily be rendered unusable. Then my eye fell on the antique, hand-painted tiles on the wall.Of course. Supposedly, Manuel Romano had brought from Portugal and placed them by hand when he first opened the bakery. Forget the mixerthat could be replaced in a matter of days,thosewere worth destroying.

My father had taken everything worth taking. Why shouldn't I do the same?

As a warm-up, I grabbed a heavy wooden chair and swung it at the display case with all the rage I'd been swallowing for months. Glass exploded in a cascade of destruction. The sound was beautiful. Final. I swept my arm across the counter, sending vintage tins and ceramic jars crashing to the floor. The noise filled the empty bakery, filled my head, drowned out the voice that kept asking What are you doing? What are you doing? What are you doing? —

Picking up the chair again, I swung at the decorative tiles on the wall and felt a savage satisfaction when one cracked. Then another. Then—

"Enough."

The voice cut through my rage like a knife. I spun around, the chair still gripped in my bloody hands, my chest heaving. I found Manuel Romano standing in the doorway to the back room.

My first thought:run.

My second thought:too late.

The old man wore pajamas and an old cardigan, his weathered face calm despite the destruction surrounding us. He should have looked vulnerable, instead he looked solid. Unmovable. Like he'd seen worse than this and lived through it.

I expected yelling. Threats. Police. The handcuffs, criminal charges, the destruction of whatever future I had left.

Instead, Manuel walked slowly into his bakery, his slippers crunching on broken glass with each step, and surveyed the damage with the same attention he probably gave his bread dough.

"Why?" he asked simply, his accent softening the word.

The question caught me off guard. Notwhat were you thinkingordo you know what you've donebut just... why?

"Why not?” I snarled, dropping the chair. It clattered against the floor, loud in the sudden silence. My hands were shaking now, adrenaline and shame mixing into something toxic that made my skin feel too tight. "You'll call the cops anyway. Might as well make it worth it."

"I haven't called anyone yet." Manuel bent down, his movements slow and deliberate, and picked up one of the broken tiles. His family crest, I realized dimly—a design that had survived generations, crossed an ocean, meant something to him. And I'd destroyed it because I was angry at a man who wasn't even here. "I want to understand. Why my bakery?"

"It doesn't matter"

"It matters to me."